


I Ain't No Musician

by via_ostiense



Category: Rent - Larson
Genre: Gen, chain_of_fics
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2005-12-22
Updated: 2005-12-22
Packaged: 2017-10-15 16:56:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,108
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/162909
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/via_ostiense/pseuds/via_ostiense
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Roger knew better than to fight a losing battle. So he left. He pawned his guitar, packed his bag, and drove westward.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I Ain't No Musician

Roger knew better than to fight a losing battle. So he left. He pawned his guitar, packed his bag, and drove westward.

 

"Davis! Get your ass in here, we've got customers waiting!" Garben's yell split the relative peace of the parking lot and Roger looked at him, then turned back away. Even newbie waiters were allowed a fifteen-minute break every four hours and he'd only used up ten minutes. The lot behind the diner was worn out, baked to death under the New Mexico sun. Not a weed nor a cockroach broke up the cracked pavement and Roger thought that missing cockroaches was pretty funny. Or pretty sad, he wasn't sure which. Just one of those pieces of New York that he'd never realized he'd accumulated. He stubbed out his cigarette and headed back inside.

 

When Roger came home, he ate dinner and drifted around doing nothing until it was time for bed. He still wasn't used to not checking his answering machine, so every time he came through the door he'd look at the phone, check for a blinking light. It was dark, though, because he hadn't given out his number and he hadn't bought an answering machine to begin with. "Everything from the past stays there," he told himself. "I'm making a new life, I'm gonna be everything I wanted to be."

He had dinner every night for the first time since college, when he'd been on a meal plan and hadn't appreciated it. Dorm food sucked, but he remembered too many nights in New York when he'd wished for mystery meatloaf, because even that was better than noth--

"That's part of the past now," he broke into speech mid-thought. "Past, and this is my new life." He speared a piece of chicken with his fork and concentrated on the taste. A little tough, a little dry, but tangy with peppers. "See? Food. I've got food, I've got a job, I'm gonna become real now."

After dinner, he did the dishes and sat on the porch. His little shack was far enough outside of town that the city lights didn't block out the stars. He could trace constellations he hadn't ever seen and it was warm enough to hang out naked. One night he did, sprawled out bare on the porch and watched the stars, no neighbours around to hoot and no city lights or smog haze to dim the sky. It was the first time that he'd been far enough south to see Scorpio, and he thought that it looked more like a guitar than a bug. That changed the celestial scene so that Orion was just a man running away from a guitar, not a hunter running away from a bug, though, and Roger could hear Mark too clearly in his head. A sarcastic voice saying, "The symbolism's a little obvious, isn't it? You know that what you see in a film is what's inside yourself."

Roger got up abruptly and went inside. He threw back a beer, closed the curtains in his bedroom so that he couldn't see the sky, and fell into bed without showering the dirt off his skin.

 

One of Garben's shitty rules was that employees couldn't work more than fifty hours a week, something about laws and overtime pay. Extra money would've been nice, but that wasn't what Roger was worried about. Rent on his shack was insanely low, especially compared to anywhere that he'd lived before Santa Fe, and taxes were lower here than in any other state he'd lived in, too. The weather was warm, so no worries about heating, either, and he didn't have to spend anything on music stuff. Mark had been paying his and Roger's share of the rent for the last few months because all of Roger's money was going into advertising for gigs, bribing club owners for gigs, equipment for recording demos, any of the things that drained a starving musician's wallet. Roger didn't have to think about anything that he'd had to think about in his old life.

The problem was that fifty hours a week left one day a week free, usually Sunday. It could have been Monday or Wednesday or Friday for all Roger cared; it wasn't the particular day free that mattered so much as that there was any day free. In the noise of silverware hitting plates and ice cubes sloshing in plastic cups, Roger didn't have any quiet for thinking. Not thinking was good and noise was good, because thinking lead to wondering what could have happened if he'd stayed--where he'd been before. With the people he'd been before.

"Don't be stupid." Roger looked in the mirror on Sunday morning and stared hard. He was gaining weight and the warm yellow sun was turning his skin darker. The hollows in his cheeks were gone and he was starting to grow a mustache. He looked like a different person now and he couldn't find any trace of anyone in his face but Roger Davis, waiter at the One Up Diner, two-month resident of Santa Fe, habits include stargazing, smoking, and beer, total Philistine with no appreciation for the arts. Darlene at the diner had invited him to a concert at the Cactus Cafe last night but he'd begged out. "That folk music shit ain't my thing," he'd said, and grinned crookedly to assure her that there were no hard feelings.

"Really? I know you say that, Davis, but I can't believe it. You've got a musician's soul if I ever seen one." She'd smiled at him and giggled. He'd frozen, wondering, What gives it away? What am I doing wrong? Why can't I hide it? Then he'd remembered that he didn't have anything to hide and that Darlene was just a worn out romantic, still waiting tables and wiping down counters twenty-three years after she'd run away to big, bohemian Santa Fe.

"Naw," he'd grinned. "No such thing, Darlene." He'd raised an eyebrow and gone the extra step that he never had in that other lifetime, and said, "But why don't you come over for dinner tomorrow?"

She'd giggled again and said, "I might. I'll call you tomorrow and let you know, Davis."

He'd written his number down on a napkin and handed it to her. "I ain't got an answering machine, so if I don't pick up, just call again later, or hell, just come on over."

"You ought to buy an answering machine, if you don't wanna miss my calls. With all the hours you work, you can afford it," Darlene said.

He smiled at her and said, "I might. I'll think about it."


End file.
